Prequel Part 1: Death of a Nation
by Silifi
Summary: The story of before AW1, when Olaf was only a young man, trying desperately to find his place in a world torn apart by bloodshed.
1. Chapter 1: The First Battle

**Part I: Death of a Nation**

**Chapter 1: The First Battle**

The first days of winter had arrived early in Olaf's hometown. Not that he cared. The snow had never been a problem for him. In fact, he enjoyed the snow. He remembered back to his childhood, when he would have snowball fights with the rest of the neighborhood kids.

He wasn't a boy anymore though. He couldn't go out into a blizzard and have fun anymore. That was kid's stuff. He had to work, make money for the family.

The work was easy enough to find. The country couldn't waste any man power, not when they were at war. They needed men to repair vehicles, to ship supplies to the front lines.

But it wasn't his country that was doing the fighting. The Blue Moon Army had been decimated within days of the first strikes by Yellow Comet. It was Orange Star, gallantly blazing through the countryside to save a war-torn country.

At least, that's what the papers said.

The truth was that Orange Star couldn't care less about Blue Moon. They came to save it, but they weren't doing so out of kindness. They were doing it for land. If they had a purpose to move their army through, the line between the countries would slowly fade until Blue Moon became apart of Orange Star.

He pretended, at work and at school, to not care. He pretended to welcome these invaders. People who did speak out against Orange Star tended to vanish the next day. They were the brave ones.

Olaf was a coward. He had spoken out against the occupation before they had taken over everything. He had protested with those lost souls. But once they did take over, he cowered and didn't fight. He praised Orange Star and assimilated himself into it. He would not fight.

That was, until the Orange Star Army came knocking on his door.

He was sitting down for lunch with his family. His sister was playing the piano in the background, Mother preparing desert. Father was talking with Olaf and his brothers, discussing the news and work. A normal family.

The conversation and music abruptly ended when the door was slammed open. A cold wind filled the air, and Orange Star soldiers filled the modest little home.

One of them, dressed in an officer's uniform, spoke. "We're the Orange Star Army. We're here to gather a militia."

"For what? Is Yellow Comet here?" Father asked, shocked.

"Yes, they are a few miles from here. We're evacuating this town, and we're recruiting every able-bodied man to serve in Militia brigades. You." The officer pointed at Olaf.

"You can't take my boy away from me! I will fight!" Father shouted at the officer.

The officer stepped up to Father. He looked over, examining him. He signaled one of the soldiers to come to him.

"Stand up."

Father stood.

Faster than Olaf could blink, the soldier slammed the butt of his gun into Father's back, and he fell to the floor.

"We're taking the boy."

----------

Olaf looked back at his house as the soldiers escorted him to their trucks.

"What's going to happen to them?" He asked the officer.

"They will be fine. We're sending them to the work camps."

"You can't do this!"

The officer stopped. The soldiers stopped soon after.

The officer stepped close to Olaf, so close that he could feel his hot breath on his face. "Are you questioning me, boy?"

Olaf tried to back up, but it would be into the soldiers. The officer stared into his eyes, demanding the answer.

"Yes. I want to know why you are doing this."

The officer took a step back, then slapped Olaf with the back of his hand. The pain struck him like hot needles in his face. His nose started to bleed. He did not wipe his face.

The soldiers proceeded to take him to their vehicles. He saw in the back of one of the old trucks many other young men, just like himself. He recognized the faces.

He climbed in, and leaned against the loose wooden boards. The entire truck seemed as if it could fall apart at any second.

"So they got you too, Olaf." He heard a voice say just across from him.

It was Vlad, one of his friends from school. Vlad had lived just down the road from him.

Olaf acknowledged him with a nod. He kept looking back to his house, wondering if his family would be okay. There had been stories about what happened to those in the camps. He didn't know if they were true, but be worried nonetheless. He couldn't bear the thought of losing them.

"Don't worry Olaf. They should be okay. Orange Star isn't gonna do anything to us anymore. They're trying to assimilate us, not kill us. Just let it happen." Vlad said, trying to reassure him.

"Did they take your family?"

"I don't know. I was just walking down the street and they started shooting at me. I put my hands up and they brought me here."

The trucks began to move.

"Where are they taking us?" Olaf asked.

"Taking us to the base so they can give us guns. Then they're going to send us out into the battle."

"We aren't even going to be trained. We're just the meat shield. Send us out to die so they can move some of their own guys to take the yella headquarters." A man sitting next to Olaf said. He didn't recognize the man, but he could tell that he was a miner. He looked like he hadn't shaven in days, and his face was covered in dirt and soot.

Olaf nodded sullenly. The man put out his hand. "Name's Alek." Olaf shook his hand.

In the distance, Olaf could hear the gunshots and the sound of artillery fire. It was only then that the reality of the situation hit him.

--------

Only a couple hours later, Olaf arrived at the battlefield. He had been given a rifle, and was unaware how to use it. He had shot guns before, but this was a fully automatic rifle. The only person that seemed comfortable with these weapons was Alek. As they marched through the thick snow, he explained to those that didn't seem ready how to shoot.

As they marched on, the sound of artillery fire and gunshots got louder, and they could begin to hear the sounds of battle. Men screamed in pain. These new soldiers could only imagine what would happen when they got there.

Before long, the artillery fire became visible. Blasts of fire came from the forests unexpectedly. Before long, Olaf could see the line of new recruits thinning out.

A man near the front of the line stared straight forward, and Olaf saw the terror on his face. His eye twitched for a second. Another artillery shell landed, taking out more of the marching soldiers.

The man turned around and ran away from the fight. An Orange Star officer that marched with them pulled out a pistol and shot him. No one dared look back from that moment on.

The roar of the machine guns got louder and louder, the sounds became unbearable. Then the men started getting hit.

"Take cover!" A voice yelled. Everyone began hiding behind trees and rocks, getting their guns ready. Those who were too slow were ripped apart by the bullets.

The Orange Star officer had taken cover just a few yards away from Olaf. Olaf looked to the officer and saw him throw a grenade forward. The explosion seemed to shake the earth, and there were audible screams. The Yellow Comet Army was coming through.

"Fire at will!" The officer yelled.

Olaf grabbed his gun and aimed it towards the advancing soldiers. He shot, and a spray of fire came out of his gun. He lost control of it, and let go of the trigger. He looked towards the other soldiers, who did the same. But the inaccurate fire had done its damage. Enemy soldiers fell, marking the snow with red.

Olaf shot again, this time making sure to control his gun. He wasn't aiming at anything, just shooting in the general direction of the enemy. He couldn't bear the sight of the men being destroyed.

Alek ran up beside him, firing his rifle, one shot at a time. Each shot hit its mark.

"Aim the gun Olaf! Don't just shoot!" Alek yelled into his ear. But Olaf could only barely hear it.

He looked down the sight of the gun, and looked into the body of his enemy. He shot. The enemy was hit.

Alek nodded and ran off into the forest, taking more shots at the enemy. Again and again he hit them, not missing a single shot.

The officer signaled to Olaf. He pointed forward. They both ran forward, dodging death a million times with each step they took. They stopped a few yards later, and fired more shots at the enemy.

Olaf could notice that the Yellow Comet soldiers were no longer advancing forward. They were hiding behind the trees, just like he was, firing at the advancing Blue Moon troops.

But this was not the same. The Yellow Comet soldiers were better trained, firing back with more ferocity. They were making gains again, killing off the untrained militia forces. Olaf saw the Yellow Comet tanks crossing over the frozen river. They shot out the sides at the unprotected militia troops.

The advancing line of death kept coming through. It was getting closer to Olaf. So when he heard the shout of "Pull Back!" he did not hesitate to run. The Yellow Comet soldier began to pull out of hiding to chase down the militia.

But Alek was there. He ran through the forest, shooting them down one by one. Olaf would not wait idly while Alek took all the fire. He turned around and fired, trying his best to hit the enemy soldiers. He missed. But he hit many too.

The Orange Star officer kept trying to push forward, but he was alone. He threw a grenade just ahead of a Yellow Comet Tank. The tank exploded in a brilliant display of fire. The advancing soldiers were being shot down by the now emboldened militia forces. Alek began to turn back, and Olaf followed, continuing to shoot at the Yellow Comet Soldiers.

The enemy soon realized what was happening, and began to pull back, firing their parting shots. They were trying to get past the river, where their base was.

Alek ran forward, fast as he could, ignoring the enemy soldiers. He picked up something from his belt. It appeared to be a grenade. He pulled the pin out, and threw towards the river.

The explosion did not hit the enemy. They were not at the river yet. But the ice cracked, melted. The water was flowing beneath, and these soldiers were cut off. They kept going slowly through the snow, but the militia was faster. They had lived in this country for years, the weather was no problem for them.

The enemy tried desperately to march through the river, but it was no use. They were slowed down by the cold water, and could not move quickly enough to escape.

The militia shot down at the soldiers as they attempted to move through the river. The water soon ran red, and blood stained the snow. They could not hope to withstand the fury of Blue Moon.


	2. Chapter 2: Fall Into Darkness

**Chapter II: Fall into Darkness**

Olaf had left the battle a changed man. He thought back to the old life he had, one of work and family. It seemed so distant now, having seen men die on the battlefield. He would never go back to what he had before.

Prior to the battle, he thought about what happened to his family. He thought about what would happen to his little sister. To his mother. To his father, and his brothers. But those thoughts left his mind. He didn't know those people anymore.

He left his bunk and walked over to the mess hall. He joined the other men in the line for whatever Orange Star was serving them. Bread. For all their fighting, for all their sacrifice, they got a slice of bread.

But they were not complaining. They took that bread as if it were the greatest meal in the world. They knew that the next day they might not have the luxury of food.

Olaf took his bread, and sat down at the table. Vlad sat down across from him.

"Hey, Olaf," Vlad said, with a weak, trembling voice. He was trying to hold on to some sense of normalcy.

"Vlad," Olaf answered back.

"We sure beat those yellas good. Shot down fifteen of them." He made a small laugh.

Olaf just stared at his bread.

"Yeah, I wonder how many Alek shot. He did pretty good out there, killing those damn yellas," He said again, this time louder. He laughed again, louder and stronger.

"How many did you kill, Olaf? Huh?" Vlad said, this time shouting. The rest of the men looked at him.

"Kill a lot of them? Did you see the way they fell down as you blew their heads off?" Vlad was laughing hysterically now. The laughter slowly made way for crying. He fell to the floor.

Olaf showed no emotion. He wanted to laugh and cry, just like Vlad. But nothing came out of him.

Vlad looked up at Olaf, tears streaming down his face. "Did you ever think, Olaf, while you were loading lead into their bodies, about their families? They were some lady's son. They had fathers and mothers and brothers, and sisters! They were just like us, and we killed them!"

Alek sat down nearby. There was a presence around Alek, the presence of a leader. The men looked up to him as he walked down the aisle. It seemed as if the very table he sat down at was imbued with some sort of holiness.

"Hey Alek! Me and Olaf were just discussing what happened out there! How many did you kill?"

Alek stared at Vlad. "I don't keep count."

"Don't keep count of each of the lives you destroyed?" Vlad asked, almost angry now.

Alek stood up and walked over to Vlad. He laid his fist into Vlad's skull.

"No, I don't keep track of each of the people I destroy. I know they are men like us. I know what it means each and every time I fire my gun." Alek answered.

"How do you live with it?" Vlad asked. "Knowing what you've done?"

"I live with it by knowing that this is my life. The old days are gone. You are not a boy, or even a man anymore, Vlad. You are a soldier. We all are. We fight for survival, we fight to see the next horrible day. We fight for our food and our own pointless existence, because this is what we are." Alek said, then sat back down, and took a bite from his bread.

Vlad had no response to this. He merely turned back to his bread, and ate.

-------------

It was no more than a day later that Orange Star had sent the militia into battle once again. They named Alek the commander of fourty men, fourty men that would be sent through the mountains to hold off a Yellow Comet advance.

Alek, of course, knew that they were sending the militia off to throw their bodies in the way so that Orange Star would have more time to prepare. There was little chance of this small group of soldiers holding off an entire brigade of the Yellow Comet army.

He accepted the command, however. There was no option other than to follow orders.

They were only a few minutes until the militia reached it's destination, an abandoned arms factory. But this was no peaceful march. Olaf knew that Yellow Comet was on their trail. He had not seen them, but he could feel the presence of someone. He thought that maybe he had caught one in the corner of his eye, simply not reigistering the fact in his brain.

His fears were not unfounded. Just as he saw the base on the horizon, the first shots were fired.

Five soldiers were taken out before anyone could react. But this was their second battle. They knew what to do. Everyone took cover immediately, and fired into the mounds of rock hidden by fog.

"Continue firing. Draw them out." Alek whispered to the men nearest to him after the mountains were silent.

One after the other, the men fired into the mountains. Rock shattered, and the Yellow Comet army began moving out of hiding. They shot, again and again, now aiming for the hearts of the enemy. They were successful.

Their success, however, would last only for a time. The well trained Yellow Comet army wasted no time manuevering around the mountains. Within seconds, they were being fired on from all sides. More of the militia died, and the men began to scatter, attempting to take cover. But the men had no concept of where the enemy was firing from. It seemed as if they would die right there, as the Yellow Comet army ripped apart their soldiers by the dozens.

Alek quickly directed the men to run towards the base. If they made it, they would have more cover and better ability to fight off the enemy soldiers. By now, only about thirty militia were left. That number would be halved before any of them reached the base.

Olaf ran quickly, strafing every once and awhile to throw off the aim of his hunter. He moved behind trees, hoping to block their view. In time, they could not simply aim at the militia. They ran out of hiding and gave chase.

This was precisely the moment Alek had been waiting for. Soon as the first soldier gave away his cover, Alek fired his rifle. He quickly moved behind a tree, sniping each enemy as they came to chase. Olaf saw this too, and stayed to fight with Alek. The feeling was the same with every man. They fired on the emboldened enemy.

But these soldiers would not be defeated so easily. Soon as they realized what was happening, they took up their own positions of defense. And in the distance, more soldiers could be seen running to the site of the battle.

"Let's move around. There should be a bunker around back." Alek said, loud enough that the his men could hear him over the gunfire, but not loud enough for the enemy to hear.

The militia quickly moved, again being torn apart by the gunfire. There were only about six more men left as they moved behind the base. Alek, however, took up position at the corner of the building.

"Get over there! Don't let them see where you went! I'll fight them for now." He shouted.

"We aren't going to leave you to them. There are at least thirty of them out here!" Vlad shouted at Alek.

"You know I know that damn well. Get back there, save yourselves. I'm not letting you fail the mission because you want to be some idiot heros. Get out of here."

The others were in no position to argue. They moved quickly into the underground bunker. Olaf came first, and pryed open the door with his hands. Everyone fled inside.

A gunshot just barely missed Olaf as he pulled into the bunker. He grabbed his gun and pulled in. More gunfire as the enemy came down the stairs into the bunker. Olaf fired, his gun splitting the soldier in half. Olaf shut the door and vomited in the corner.

---------------

The following days were cold and miserable. The Yellow Comet Army, though powerful, had given up on attempting to attack the heavily defended bunker. They were well fortified, and even if they got in, there were five soldiers perfectly capable of removing them. Olaf assumed that they had backed off, and were merely waiting for the heavy artillery to arrive and blow them up while they slept.

"I wonder if there's any food in here," Vlad said, wandering about the dark room. There was no sunlight, only candles lit the room.

"I told you, there is none. This bunker was probably abandonded long ago, no reason to leave food in here," It was Erik, a red-haired, very young looking man. It almost seemed more appropriate to call him a boy, because of his relative size compared to the others.

"Yeah, well we haven't looked hard enough!" Vlad shouted, and started searching the room frantically.

"Just stop. There's nothing here," Olaf said quietly.

Vlad heard nothing. He was still searching.

"Vlad," Olaf said, this time more assertive.

"What?"

"There is no food. We already looked."

"But we might not have looked everywhere!"

"Look around you. There are no hiding spots. This is a wide and open room. There is no where for the food to be," Olaf said, trying to reason.

Vlad looked on at Olaf, defeated. He sat down.

Erik looked up from the ground. "Maybe we should go out and look for food."

Ivan, a bald, skinny man that spoke rarely, spoke for the first time in days. "Who's going to go out there and get shot? I'm not."

Reidar, a long-haired man with jet black hair, was the next to make a suggestion. "We need to go outside sometime. We stay in here and we'll die."

"Alek wouldn't have wanted us to come all this way just to be killed," Erik noted.

"Sounds like a volunteer to me," Vlad said to Erik, his words coated with loathing.

"Quiet. All of you," Olaf ordered. The others seemed shocked by this. When they came in to the bunker, there was no leader. It was five men who had lost their only guide. It was only now that they realized that someone would have to replace Alek.

Olaf walked over to the door as the others stared at him. He opened it, hoping not to be shot down the moment he was open.

There was no kiss of lead on his neck, however. Only the cold wind that blew against his body, and the flakes of snow that quickly filled the room. Olaf waited.

"Are they gone?" Vlad whispered.

Olaf put his finger to his mouth. Everyone was quiet. Only the howling of the winter winds could be heard.

"It's getting dark. You shouldn't go out," Reidar said.

"That's exactly the point, Reidar," Olaf said, looking out into the unforgiving sky above him, "Wait for me here. Don't open the door unless I give three knocks, a pause, and then a tap." Olaf demonstrated on the door, and closed it.

He was alone now. Nothing would save him if he was caught. Nothing garunteed that he would live to see the next day.

-------

"What would you have me do, Alek?" Olaf asked, whispering to the dark blue sky. "What can we do?"

There was of course, no answer. Olaf stood there, in the middle of the dark forest, unsure of his next step. Something inside him, however, told him he had to move on.

"Alek would have wanted us to survive. He won't die in vain."

This black night was brutal. Olaf could see nothing except for the vague silhouettes of branches just inches from his face. He moved through the forest, knowing that if he stepped in the wrong spot, he might notify Yellow Comet that he was there.

He heard a loud explosion off in the distance, and it startled him. He fell to the ground, and looked to the direction of the noise. A blaze lit up the night sky for a brief moment.

Gunshots could be heard in the distance as well, and Olaf knew that this was a battle. He looked back to the horrors of his first two battles, but then thought it over. If there was a battle, that meant there was someone else in these woods. Allies.

He ignored the trees infront of his face, ignored the loud noise he was making. It didn't matter if they heard someone running through the bushes anymore. If there was a fight, they probably couldn't even hear him.

However, that was a miscalculation on his part. A gun fired, and a nearby tree was hit. Someone was in the forest with him.

He stopped moving, and readied his rifle. He looked closely at the bullethole in the tree, and looked towards where the gun should have fired. He waited for the next explosion to light up the forest so that he could kill his adversary.

The fire lit the sky again, and he squeezed the trigger, just before he realized that he was shooting at Orange Star.

Miss.

"Wait!" Olaf shouted at the top of his lungs. There were bullets firing all over the place, and they seemed in no hurry to halt their firing.

"I'm on your side! I'm a militia!"

The gunshots stopped, and he heard the soldiers moving towards him. He set his rifle on the ground, making sure that they did not perceive him as a threat.

"Why did you shoot?" The officer, a rather young man, asked. He seemed almost around Olaf's age. He didn't seem very experienced.

"I thought you were Yellow Comet," Olaf responded.

"Is the militia unit still here? Where is Commander Alek?" The officer demanded.

"Alek is dead, sir. There are only four others left in my unit."

"Dead. How did he die?"

"We were ambushed. He told us to flee into an underground bunker while he distracted them."

"Underground bunker... where? Show me."

---------

The sky became darker and darker as they wandered through the woods, but it was occassionally lit by an explosion. Olaf barely knew the direction that the bunker was in, or what direction they were going in. He knew only his instincts, and hoped that those would be sufficient to deliver him to him comrades.

"Thirty-five men died?" The officer asked Olaf after a somewhat long silence.

"Yes. It happened very fast."

"Was there food in the bunker?"

"No. That's why I left, I was going to look for something to eat. Or find help. A little of both, I guess," Olaf responded. He felt almost like a child now, despite the youth of the officer.

"Are there enemy soldiers at the bunker?"

"Possibly. I don't know when they left, we couldn't hear anything. I assume they left to join the battle."

"No attacks when you left the bunker?" The officer asked.

"None. However, they may have moved into that factory. They might not have been guarding us, since we were only five men, inexperienced at that. Stupid mistake on their part."

The officer looked over at Olaf, intrigued. "You aren't an officer of any sort?"

"No. Alek was the only commander of our unit."

"I'm going to ask you a question, and I don't want you to think too much into it. If we were attacking a factory, and there were enemies inside, would you perform a frontal assault or would you suggest we go around through the back?"

"I wouldn't do either. I'd lure them out using a few gunshots from the woods. Make them move out to attack us. Then move a portion of our forces to attack their flank, and move the rest to the back, take out the weakened defenses, and fire on them from all sides."

"That's a very elaborate plan for a militia soldier," The officer smiled. "Let's see if it works."


	3. Chapter 3: Vlad

**Chapter III: Vlad**

A year after the initial invasion by Yellow Comet, Blue Moon had fallen to it's lowest point. Within three months of the organization of a militia, the initial ten million men that had been recruited had fallen to three million.

The army was in no condition to fight. They had been thrown into battle, torn away from their families, and forced to fight for a country that they did not believe in.

The Orange Star officials were in no mood to change their tactics. In order to assimilate Blue Moon, that fighting force would have to be destroyed. Eliminated. The only way to do so without inciting a rebellion would be to send them to die against the Yellow Comet Invasion.

However, deep within the occupied cities of Blue Moon, a movement was starting. It was quiet, so much that no Orange Star soldier would ever recieve word of the hero that now embodied the Blue Moon nationalism.

It hadn't took long for a mere letter, sent from an unknown location, to root itself into the local culture. One man saw it first, and he passed it on to his friends in silence. It spread like wildfire, and soon the people knew of a secret hero that had died in their defense.

Alek was his name. The ledgend surrounding him proposed that he had been a man that led thousands of Blue Moon fighters deep into the Yellow Comet sectors, a man that shrugged off the Orange Star regulations and fought on his own accord. A man that won victory after victory, hoping to one day turn his vast army back at Orange Star, and achieve independence.

But, as the story went, Orange Star had noted his independant thought, and they wanted him dead. An intricate assassination plot was set, and they purposely revealed him in a vulnerable position to Yellow Comet. He had died in the fighting, and left the Blue Moon army with no leader, no direction.

Alek was a hero. A messiah. A symbol of the Blue Moon fighting spirit. These people would not soon forget his heroism.

-----

Stasia walked down the snow-filled road, careful not to look into the streets. The streets were where the soldiers rode, and they were quick to anger. They could not possibly tolerate a civilian, let alone a young woman, having the audacity to look into the streets of her own town. That was not acceptable.

She would not let herself be angered by them, however. It seemed that every time they even thought someone was thinking bad things about them, someone ended up dead. Sometimes they would take you into their prisons, sometimes they would shoot you on the street. Whatever they felt like doing at that time, they would do.

The sight of a newstand took her attention off of the horrors of her time. The shopkeep had a sign that read "New Release."

New Release? It was almost sundown. What kind of newspaper was published in the middle of the day? Stasia was suspicous, so she initially ignored it.

But curiosity would have the best of her. She looked into the street, and saw that it was clear of soldiers. She walked up to the shopkeep.

"I'll have a copy of the new release," She asked the shopkeep, an elderly man. He looked up, seeming almost entranced at her voice.

"Oh, yes," The old man seemed to blush slightly. "My apologies. Here you are, young lady," He grabbed a newspaper off the stand.

Stasia snatched it quickly out of his hands, threw the money on the table, and quickly walked away. She turned around, and said in a sincere and somewhat saddened voice, "Thank you."

She moved quickly, and took the back alley. She searched the newspaper to look for an Orange Star seal of approval. None.

Her possession of this newspaper was a crime. If someone saw her with it, she could be shot on sight. However, it was pointless to ditch the newspaper now. She had already bought it, and she might as well get the benefits of the risk she was running.

Blue Moon Troops Nearing Vladivostok

Stasia looked at the headline and a feeling of dread came over her. Vladivostok was only a few miles away from town. Blue Moon troops were moving in to fight Yellow Comet.

But it was not only that battle that would take place nearby, by the reasoning behind this headline which frightened her. Stasia realized that whoever was writing these illegal newspapers, spreading the rumors of Blue Moon heroes, they were trying to make something happen.

A revolt. Whoever it was, they were trying to inspire a revolt. When those Blue Moon militia entered Vladivostok, they would be greeted by revolutionaries. Civilians that wanted a group of freedom fighters to liberate them. The beginnings of a Blue Moon insurgency against Orange Star.

Behind her, Stasia could hear the sound of screeching tires. She dropped the paper, fell to her knees, and began to cry.

--------

It was at that same time, not too far away from Vladivostok, that Olaf read the same newspaper.

"I repeat. Do not try anything," the Orange Star officer said from behind his desk. "Orange Star troops will be trailing you. Any attempts to start something and you will be destroyed.

"I won't go down there," Olaf responded. The Orange Star officer stared him in the eye, searching to see if it was the truth. He saw no lies.

"You will be sent out within the hour. You will be with your comrades that survived the last mission. This will be a test of your abilities. Your objective is victory at all costs. Understood?"

"Understood."

"You will be sent out along with the mass of all of the militia. I don't want you making contact with them. None. Your secondary mission is understood, is it not?"

"Find out who sent the story," Olaf said. He felt sick to his stomach. He knew who it was. But he could not tell, and if he was caught lying he would be shot along with him.

"Get out of here."

Olaf saluted the officer, and walked out. Vlad was sitting with Erik, Reidar, and Ivan at a table just outside.

"When are we leaving, Olaf?" Vlad asked him.

"In an hour. Vlad?"

"Yeah?"

"We need to talk."

Olaf pulled him away from the table and walked outside. They ran through the snow, and Olaf searched around him, checking for anyone able to listen to the conversation.

"You see anyone?" Olaf asked.

"No, why?"

"You know what this is about."

"What?"

Olaf sighed. "You don't want me to turn you in, do you? Don't play dumb, I know exactly what you did."

Vlad grinned. "You're pretty quick at this. Good job."

"Why did you write that?"

"The better question is why I didn't do it sooner. You know very well why I wrote it, Olaf," Vlad said, now in a more serious tone.

"Look, we can't have you writing stuff like this. Do you have any idea what that story is going to do? Do you have any idea what you're setting into motion?" Olaf said, shouting under his breath.

"Of course I know what it will do. That's why I wrote it."

Olaf looked down at his boots, trying to contain his anger.

"Come on Olaf! This is our chance! This is our chance to fight! I remember what you said before Orange Star started taking over. I remember you telling me about how we had to get them out of the country. I remember you saying how we had to gain independence."

"That was before. This is now."

"Oh, I see. So you condone a revolution when you don't have to fight, but soon as someone might get hurt, you back off. Play dead."

"That isn't it. You know what would happen, Vlad, if we allowed this to happen. Blue Moon is being occupied by a force over three times our size and with better equipment. Even if we manage to beat them in Vladivostok, how are we going to save Blue Moon?"

"That will come later. We have to take the opportunity when it comes. There will never be a better time. If we wait they will just become stronger and stronger, while we become weaker and the people lose the will to fight. Right now the spirit of Blue Moon is fresh in their minds. We can't pass this up," Vlad was no longer whispering. The patriotic zeal could be seen in his icey blue eyes. He was ready to die for his cause.

Olaf said nothing. He could not think of what to say that would not further drive Vlad's patriotic ambitions.

"Don't you remember Olaf, when you said those things? About how Blue Moon had to stay it's own country despite the war? Didn't you write that essay in school once, about how you loved your country? Didn't you say that you would rather be dead than be a puppet of Orange Star?"

Olaf remembered those words.

"I never would have thought, in my wildest dreams, that I would see you fall so far from your old self. I never would have thought that a boy that had such spirit, such bravery..." Vlad reminisced, "Would turn out to be such a spineless coward of a man."

Vlad's word felt like a knife through Olaf's heart. He clenched his fist and looked Vlad straight in the eye, his anger plainly visible.

"You're only angry because you know it's true."

Another knife tore through him.

"I'm only doing what's best for those people. What's best for Blue Moon."

"What's best for Blue Moon is independence, not cowardice."

Another moment of silence as the chilling wind blew strong against them. Vlad opened his mouth to speak as the wind calmed.

"Go on Olaf. Go fight your war. Just ask yourself, when you've won, who are you going to turn to? Me, or them?" He walked away, leaving Olaf to stand alone in the cold.


	4. Chapter 4: Last Militia

**Chapter IV: Last Militia**

Stasia woke up in a cold, dark cell. Her body trembled in pain, she could barely move without feeling as if she was being torn apart. She put her hand on her leg. Blood. There was blood all over her.

"Don't move." a chilling voice spoke from behind her.

She was almost tempted to look behind her, to see who it was. But as she heard the man cock his gun, she knew she couldn't.

"Who gave you the newspaper?"

"I don't know," she said, half in defiance, and half telling the truth.

"Don't lie."

"I'm not lying. I don't know who it was. It was the first time I had ever seen him."

"What did he look like?"

"He was old. I think he had glasses."

"Turn around."

Stasia slowly turned around to see a gun in her face. She looked past it to see the two blue eyes looking straight at her.

"Why do you lie?" The man asked, hesistant. He seemed afraid. His leg was shaking.

"I don't remember exactly what he looked like. I only saw him for a few seconds," she was assertive in her answer this time.

"Just tell me!" he shouted, with a faint cry in his voice.

"I've told you everything I know," Stasia looked him straight in the eyes, penetrating his very soul.

"Please," he begged.

"Why should I? Why do you want the answer so badly? Is it because you don't want to kill me?" her words struck like a dagger in his heart.

"No, I don't want to kill you. I want you to tell me the answer," he admitted.

"Anything more I tell you would be a lie."

He thought over it. "I don't care."

"The man was named Illarionov. I don't know his first name. He told me that he was joining up with a rebel movement in Vladivostok to overtake the Orange Star Army," she said, trying her best to sound confident. The truth was, of course, that she had made the entire story up on the spot.

The man nodded and walked towards a wooden stairway. He stopped.

"I'll be back."

---------

The mission in Vladivostok had been accomplished. The Yellow Comet Navy was now retreating from the area, and Orange Star troops were moving in to assess the situation.

Olaf had been raising the flag of Orange Star over a tall building when they fired.

"Lieutenant Olaf! You will come down immediately for questioning!"

Olaf came down from the building, carefully. His body trembled with fear, as he knew the worst could happen. He could guess, that they knew about Vlad, somehow. Someone had figured it out, and someone had figured out that Olaf knew as well, and that he was covering for him. Such secrets would be punishable by death.

Once he reached the ground, the Orange Star soldiers grabbed his arms and dragged him to a pickup truck. They lifted him and threw him in the back, his head slamming against the floor.

The pain in his head almost drowned out his senses, all he could see was a blur, and the sound of the truck's engine starting fluctuated in pitch.

He faintly heard the slamming of one door. The next thing he saw was the image of a soldier, the butt of his gun coming straight down.

Black ink bleed into his vision, covering the lonely gray sky. Olaf raised his hand, and saw it, glowing in the field of darkness.

He looked around, turned his head, and saw the dark, lonely world. Slowly, he could see points of light appearing around him, glowing bits of dust floating in the air. The lights became bigger and bigger until they finally consumed the darkness. The dark abyss had become a small room, with a chair across from him, it's back turned on him.

Olaf looked down to see himself on his own chair, modest in comparison to the throne across the table. A plume of pink smoke came up from behind it.

"Hello, Olaf." A booming voice said. It seemed to come from the ceiling. Olaf turned to look for it.

"I'm not there. I'm here." The chair rotated around, revealing a strange looking man. He looked much like the Orange Star officer who had taken Olaf from his home, but he wore a black uniform, and held a cigar in his hand. From the cigar came the pink smoke.

"Who are you?" Olaf inquired.

"Why did you lie to us?"

"I don't know who you are..." Olaf laughed a little at his own foolish confusion at the situation.

"You lied to me, Olaf. You told us you didn't know what happened."

Olaf just stared at the man's forehead. The wrinkles on it seemed to curve around a central point. He stared at the point, noticing now that the point was bulging out of his head.

An eye opened out of the buldge. "Have you seen anything strange lately?"

Olaf merely nodded, and pressed himself back in his seat in sheer terror.

The third eye looked into his eyes, penetrating. The colored part began to glow and eerie green, and it shined into his eye, blinding him. The green light consumed his vision once again.

"Wake up," he heard a faint voice say. The sound slowly bleed into full clarity. "Wake up!"

Olaf's eyes shot open. He was chained to a metal chair.

"What do you know about the rebel movement?" The voice said again. Olaf looked and saw a new sight, a man in a suit that held a large gun to his head. He felt the presence of someone else in the room that he could not see.

"I don't know anything. I already told you." Olaf's eyes darted to the window. He saw a girl walking with a soldier outside.

"Tell us you fool! I'm not going to ask you anymore! You tell me who's leading this or I'll kill you," the man in the suit said, his voice loud and demanding. "Blue Moon trash. They're all the same."

Olaf was angered by the man's insult, but he contained his anger. One wrong move and he would be killed. He still stayed in silence.

The man shot his gun, but carefully aimed to hit the floor. He cocked the gun again, and placed it right on Olaf's forehead.

"Tell me. Now."

"Okay, okay..." Olaf said. He wasn't going to risk anything. "The leader of the rebels is not apart of the Blue Moon militia... they're organized in the towns."

"Which towns?"

"The small towns outside Vladivostok. They're lead by..." Olaf thought for a moment. He had to come up with something, quick. "A woman."

"A little girl is plotting this?" The man laughed. "You hear that? A little girl is trying to defeat Orange Star!" He lifted the gun from Olaf's head to have a hardy laugh.

He paced around for a few seconds, then brought the gun back down to Olaf's head. "What's her name?"

"I don't know." Olaf said.

"You don't know? Why not?"

"I don't know much about the movement. I'm not apart of it."

"Then why are you covering for it?"

"Because I know someone who is in it. And I don't want them to be executed."

"Too bad. Tell us the names and we might let you live the rest of your pathetic life in one of the ghettos."

Olaf couldn't bring himself to give the name. He stalled his response for as long as he could. When he saw the man pulling back on the trigger, he sprung to action.

The energy within him exploded outward, and the chair came off the floor, flying at the man in the suit. His gun fired, shooting the soldier in the back. The chains around the chair broke apart from the sudden movement. Olaf's mouth bit down hard on the man's arm, causing his to shout in pain. As they hit the floor, he put his hand over the man's face.

The man tried to breath in, but Olaf would not allow it. He struggled for his life, but Olaf overpowered him. The struggle weakened, and Olaf removed his hand from his mouth.

Stepping up, Olaf grabbed the man's gun from his cold, dead hands. He searched the man's coat for extra rounds, and put them in his pockets, readying himself for the coming battle.

-----

Stasia walked through the corridor with the soldier. She figured that the soldier that she had convinced to not kill her went to a higher-up to deal with her. Typical man, never could take care of the job of killing a woman in cold blood.

She wondered why she had such thoughts running through her head when she was being taken to be executed. She would have thought that, in the last few minutes of her life, she would be trying to remember good times in the past. Something like that.

The man turned, and twisted her arm as he opened a new door. She noticed a wired, glass window. Probably sound proof. She had seen lots of rooms like this along the way, probably all execution or interrogation rooms, but she hadn't heard any of the yelling, or killing for that matter, that she would expect.

She stepped into the room. "Get down on you knees. Look down." The soldier said, his voice devoid of emotion.

Oh. It was going to be right now. No higher ups, apparently. She wondered what her old soldier had said to convince an equal to do it for him. Probably said he had other work to do. Wouldn't want to look too weak to kill a girl. He would be the laughing stock of his entire squadron, or whatever they called them.

She smiled at the thought. She heard the new soldier get his gun. She looked up, briefly, knowing she would die soon. Then she saw a figure in the corner of the window. He had a gun, and looked straight at her.

It was a young man, but he didn't appear to be like the others. He had fear in his eyes as he raised his gun to the soldier's head.

Stasia looked at the young man, captivated. The new soldier looked to see what she was looking at, only to realize he was looking down the barrel of a gun.

The glass shattered and a loud noise filled the room. Her executor lay dead on the floor, his head bleeding profusely, and a blood stain on the opposite wall, complete with brains and bone fragments.

"H-- I--- sa--- ou!" The young man shouted above the ringing in her ears. She figured it was some kind of chivalrous shout of victory about how he had come to save her. She laughed, half because of how cliche this moment was, and half because she had cheated death by a mere few seconds.

The ringing subsided, but she was one her feet before that happened. She was running down the hall with her savior, presumably, attempting an escape from this complex.

He fired his gun, a man all the way down the hall falling to the ground. She heard gunshots behind them. The security had obviously heard them.

Her savior, however, would have to time to fear his enemy. He scrambled down the staircase, and they continued to run into the next hallway. A man jumped out with a gun and fired, missing them both. He was taken out by another shot from the savior.

They turned a corner, and ran down the next, short hall. He opened a door, and they stepped onto a catwalk over what appeared to be a cafeteria.

The young man looked around for awhile, then noticed a window. He ran to it, and looked below.

"Stand back." She backed up with him, and he shot the window. The glass shattered, and he leapt to the window. "Come on."

Stasia was in no position to argue. She ran to the window and climbed out, falling to the ground beneath.

------

Olaf had no idea why he had saved this girl. He knew that he might have been able to escape much quicker, and without as much trouble without her. But something about her, when he first saw her walking down the hall, stuck out to him. Some indescribable connection he had made with her made him have to get her out of here.

They climbed down the piping on the side of the wall, and fell into a small alley. After finding his bearings again, he noticed that there was gunfire. People were running across the streets.

He grabbed the girl's hand and ran out of the alley, and notice Orange Star soldiers shooting their rifles in the other direction. He ran out to join the swarm of people running mindlessly through the streets.

Through the loud noise of gunfire and screaming, Olaf heard a loud engine.

Suddenly, to his side, a small building exploded, bricks and wooden fragments flying out and hitting people. Olaf held his ground and pointed his weapon towards the building. A tank had plowed through the building.

The design of the tank was not what he had expected, however. It's treads were not covered like an Orange Star tank, and it's bolts seemed loose. Through the mud-stain he could see the shining of gold.

It was the Yellow Comet army. Somehow, the Yellow Comet army was breaking through and attacking this city.

Olaf looked around and saw an Orange Star soldier to the left of the tank, holding a rocket launcher.

"Run!" Olaf shouted to the girl. They ran as fast as they could to avoid the tank, which had exploded in a ball of fire. The surrounding buildings collapsed, blocking off the way that they had come from. More Yellow Comet tanks could be seen in the distance.

They kept running with the crowd. Orange Star reinforcements were coming the opposite way, with their own tanks and men. The stampede of people collided with the military units, and the civilians could not survive. Tanks and cars collided with the people, running them over, soldiers shot those who got in their way.

Olaf pulled the girl with him to the side of the building, keeping her back as the army moved through the streets. He looked into her eyes, and saw a fear that he had never seen before.

The Orange Star army was torn apart. Artillery fire rained across the city. Olaf knew that it was again time to run, as the Yellow Comet army would soon reach them.

They ran for another few blocks, avoiding death at every step they took as cannons tore apart the world behind them. Olaf stopped for a moment and put the gun in his pants pocket, and took off his militia uniform, and threw it back into the street.

The uniform flew in the wind, and even as Olaf and Stasia ran out of the battlefield, it remained. It would be the last time that Olaf saw the uniform of the militia. Only once again in his life, would he ever see Blue Moon unified.

So he ran, leaving behind the life of the soldier. He vowed to himself that he would never go into battle again. Fate, however, had other things in store for him.


	5. Chapter 5: Olaf's War

**Chapter V: Olaf's War**

The black pavement abruptly gave way to a thin gravel pathway, the large chunks of sable rock replaced by pebbles of granite. A cacophony of explosions and gunfire still rung in Olaf's ears, as he and the girl continued to run down the pathway, leaving the vast conflagration behind them.

The harsh gusts chilled his body to the core, but he found himself caring less and less about the sensations of his body, eventually numbing the pain. His mind had care for physical discomfort, not when his mind was racing.

What had happened to him? It was, at most, an hour after he had awoken from the deep slumber. The world had been altered, from a soldier to a fugitive, in such a short amount of time that he had no time to make the mental transition. As he thought about what he was going to do next, he thought that he might succumb to insanity.

He looked to his side to see that the girl was no longer with him. He halted his running and pivoted to see her, slowly running and then collapsing into the ground.

She drew in a large gasp of breath, and tried to pull herself to her feet. Olaf ran back to her, reaching his hand out to help her.

She looked up at him, and for the first time he saw how beatiful she was. Her fair skin shown through the dirt and blood on her face, and her deep, sapphire eyes radiated with an indescribable allure.

She grabbed onto his hand, and pulled herself to her feet. Her body still trembled, an she seemed ready to fall again. Olaf put his arm around her and supported her, walking her the rest of the way down the hill.

"Thank you," She said, her voice still staggered, but recovering. She took another breath. "My name is Stasia, by the way," She said finally, in a clear and smooth voice.

"Olaf," He said simply.

They walked in silence for a few moments, until Stasia spoke again. "Thank you for saving me. You're in the Blue Moon Militia, right?"

Olaf scoffed at this. "There is no Blue Moon Militia. It's gone forever," He said, livid.

Stasia was somewhat entertained by his sudden emotion. She wondered, why was he so angry about the Blue Moon Militia? It may have been true that it ended, she had no concept of the internal affairs of the Orange Star Army. But his petulance seemed to suggest that he may have been involved in it. The notion of standing next to a man that could very well be an important figure within the army was intoxicating.

Nevertheless, she decided not to prod any further. She had already pushed him to anger with her statement, any more discussion might very well change his mind on what to do with her.

So instead, she said, "Oh."

Olaf now seemed confused by this simple statement, as if he expected her to say something more, to say something that might enrage him, push him over the edge. An interesting man he was, not the typical soldier, who only knew how to shoot and take orders. But she supposed that was what would happen, if they were taken out of the entire population. If they were merely recruited, as they had been in Orange Star, one would expect that they would all be similar. But here, the soldiers ranged from fools to men of extraordinary intellect.

He stopped, looking around the horizon, and then up into the zenith of the sky. She could see in his eyes that he was making an calculation of some sort. "Do you know where we are?" He asked.

"No idea. They took me out of a different city."

More calculations raced through his mind. He held his arm out, and rotated it around him, his shirt sleeve flapping in the wind. Then he stopped his arm, and the shirt was suspended, held erect by the wind. He nodded his head, and turn to his left.

"You know where we are?" Stasia asked.

"Kind of," he responded. "I'll know in the morning." He said, and again scanned the horizon.

"We'll sleep in that house over there."

"Aren't we a little close to the battlefield?"

"Yeah. But we're not in it. The soldiers will be inside the city, though. There's no tactical reason to back out to here, we've already come down the hills, if they came down here to retreat, they'd be losing the high ground. Not a good idea seeing as there's a better way out." He explained.

Satisfied by his explanation, she continued to walk him him, into what she hoped would be safety, at least for the time being.

------

Olaf kicked open the door, and drew his gun, looking around to see if anyone was around. It didn't look like anyone was home, they had probably been taken into the city. Orange Star could not risk people living across the countryside, as they could easily start a revolution or aid any insurgency. Orange Star wanted to make sure that Blue Moon would forever remain in their hands.

Despite this precautionary measure, they had lost on that front. It was injudicious of them to think that a revolution would not be started. The old Blue Moon Militia would be the leaders, and would throw this country into a deeper war than had ever been seen before.

Stasia stepped into the house behind him, now able to walk without help. It was baren, except for a cot in the corner of the room. Only one room, no basement, no cellar. A stone circle in the middle of the room held a tripod, with a bowl suspended from a thin rope. Ash filled the middle of the circle.

Olaf stepped back outside, and returned with a few logs and some twigs. He dropped them straight into the firepit, and dug into his pockets, pulling out a small matchbox.

"Do soldiers have everything they need inside some pocket?" Stasia wondered, knowing that Olaf had somehow made it through the compound having been a prisoner, and that he had somehow figured out their location.

"Pretty much. We always prepared for any outcome," He cast the torrid match into the pile of twigs. They slowly ignited, and he sat idly while the fire took.

"Never thought I'd get out of the army alive. Now here I am. Outside, ready to go home. Ready to let go of all of that stuff."

"And the country," Stasia said quietly, but intentionally loud enough for Olaf to hear. He was in a sullen mood, so she no longer feared to excavate his past.

"Maybe. I don't know."

"What do you mean? The militia dissolved, the rest of us are..."

"The militia dissolved to become something else."

Stasia realized then that she was not remembering the events that brought her here correctly. There was that newspaper... they had dissolved into a rebel army.

But that brought a new question to her mind. Why did Olaf not join them? He obviously had no qualms with killing Orange Star soldiers. Why wouldn't he fight for freedom?

"So why aren't you with them? Why aren't you apart of the rebel army?"

Olaf was taken aback that she knew so much about the situation. "I did't agree with them. I thought that we should fight with Orange Star. That there was no point in fighting a revolution, that it was going to fail in the end."

"They must have not liked that."

Olaf thought back to Vlad. "No... I should have listened to him... what point is there in living if we can't have our freedom? Even if it does kill us, it's better than standing by and watching our country be destroyed. Better than living in their slave cities."

"But not everyone would agree with it. There would still be those that want the security."

"Security of what? Orange Star is just killing every man left in this country, then they'll rape the women and call it their own."

"I guess. But maybe that's only because they don't trust us."

"They don't trust us to stay quiet while our country is taken."

"No. They trust you to make a lot of noise and get yourselves shot."

Olaf was thrown by this statement. She had certainly analyzed the situation quite a bit.

"You said you thought that we should work with Orange Star at first, right?" Her voice was now thick with a strange assertiveness that he had never seen before in a woman.

"Yes," Olaf spoke passively.

"You were right. We shouldn't."

"But then we'll be destroyed in the end."

"There's a world of difference between suicide and being complacent," She was livid.

Olaf didn't know what to say to this. She was right. He used to be right, but had sacrificed what he knew to be true to fit in with what he had been told was loyalty to his country.

Stasia calmed down, and spoke again with a soft voice. "You have to do what is best for the country. You know what that is, don't you?"

"That's the problem. I don't."

------------

Stasia went to bed on the cot, next to the fire. Olaf kept himself awake, unable to sleep. He kept himself awake by asking her question again and again in his mind. He knew it would not be an easy question, not easy to come upon, nor to execute alone.

But for now, he would watch the sky through the open window. He needed to know for sure when the sun would rise. A small ebony clock in the background showed him the time. It was not correct, but it would tell him the length of time that had passed.

Through that length, he could determine his latitude. From the direction of the wind, he could determine how close he was to the coast. And from there, he could know where he was. The next city. If his suspicions were correct, he was not far from the center of the country.

Not far from home.

He turned his attention to Stasia, who slept peacefully on the cot, her arms curled to retain the heat that the fire could provide. She was beautiful. Through all of his days, he had never met a woman who looked anything like her.

But it was more than just her physical appearance that intrigued him. Behind her rousing appearance was an equally rousing personality. She had figured out so much about his own mind in such a little amount of time. He had no idea how she had managed to figure out all that she had about the war, having only a limited viewpoint from the propaganda that Orange Star gave them.

Hours passed by, and Olaf finally looked out the window to see that the night sky was fading into a dark turquoise blue, and the faint outlines of the trees became bold silhouttes. It wasn't long before the sun itself peaked up from behind the Earth, and a new day had begun.

Olaf checked the clock. He added the numbers in his head, and he came upon the answer that he had been waiting for. He was home.

His ebullience at the notion of returning home was cut short by the all too familiar sound of a gun shot. He clutched his pistol and bolted out the door.

There were no follow up shots. His leg shook in fear as he searched the horizon. He could faintly make out a small, black figure in the middle of the golden sun.

"Stasia! Wake up!" He shouted, and wasted no time in running up the hill and towards the mysterious figure.

"Stop!" He heard a faint voice yell.

Olaf stopped in his tracks, and caught his breath. He looked back and saw Stasia running up the hill.

The black figure moved down the hill and towards Olaf, and was followed by hundreds of other black figures that lined across the horizon.

Stasia caught up to Olaf, and whispered into his ear, her voice still panting, "Who are they?"

"I don't know. But they're our pathway out of here."

The lone soldier continued to march, and slowly his features became more visible. He wore a long, umber coat, leather straps holding it to his figure. The neck of his uniform was long, covering his neck. As he came even closer, two red stripes could be seen on the arms of his uniform, enclosing a third, blue stripe. A militia uniform.

Soon enough, Olaf could make out the man's countenance, and was surprised to see a familiar face. Reidar.

"Olaf? I thought you were..." Reidar looked somewhat shocked, contrasting with his usual bland expression.

"Dead? I thought so too," Olaf responded, half with a laugh.

"They said they had you executed. How did you get out? What happened?"

"I don't know. It happened so fast I can barely even remember what I did. All I know is that I killed them all. They must have been confused and under a lot of pressure. Yellow Comet came into the city giving us a chance to get out of there."

"Speaking of 'us'," Reidar said, now fully satisfied with Olaf's explanation. "Who's the broad?"

Stasia seemed ready to walk up to Reidar and slap him, but Olaf spoke in time to stop her.

"This is Stasia. I saved her inside the interrogatoon building, hoping to take her somewhere safe."

"Safe, right. Good luck with that. You go back anywhere you'll be an outlaw. And if they took her to the switch room, she's one too." His voice smacked of cynicism.

"Where are you going?"

"To Sundsvall. We're surrendering to the Orange Star general there."

"Surrendering?"

"Yeah. Vlad started the rebel army after you left, we took out the Orange Star troops in our area. Killed some more, then split. I told him I wasn't gonna deal with his crap. He said okay, let me have my own army. But I'm not about to commit suicide. I'd rather be a criminal than a traitor. They torture the traitors. I figured we'd get off nice, eh?"

"You haven't surrendered yet?"

"Nope."

"Don't do it." Olaf asserted.

"What? Now you wanna be a revolutionary?" Reidar was now pissed off, he looked ready to just leave Olaf there.

"No. There's a world of difference between suicide and complacency."

-------

Olaf kicked open the door and Reidar jumped straight in. The soldiers in the back fired shots as they came to the broken door to defend.

"What the hell?" It was the Orange Star commander, sitting across a desk from Olaf. The man they had come to see.

Olaf aimed his pistol towards the soldier to his right, and Reidar trained his rifle on the man to the left. The commander sat in the middle of this, visibly unsure of what to do.

"Put your hands, up, commander," Olaf said firmly. "Or this guy gets his head blown off."

The commander complied, raising his hands from below the desk.

"Now can you please tell me what the hell you think you're doing here? Who are you anyway?"

"Olaf. That's all you need to know. I'm here to give you an offer."

"An offer? You're giving an offer to the commander of all Orange Star troops in the next hundred miles, with a gun to my head?" The commander laughed. "Throw down your weapons before my boys come in and destroy you. I might let you die quick."

Reidar waited no more than a second after the commander finished his threat to kill the soldier his gun was aimed at. He turned and aimed towards the man on the right. Olaf brought his own gun squarely against the commander's head.

"See, inow/i there's a gun to your head. If I hear any shots, I'm taking you out. And believe me, we have more where this is coming from."

The commander sat as if a statue. As slowly as he could, he reached for his radio.

"All men stay where you are. Don't do anything."

The room was still after he put the radio down. Olaf stared into his cold, charnel eyes.

"What's your offer?" He finally asked, breaking the silence.

"There are over a thousand Blue Moon troops heading this way, they'll be here by tomorrow. You don't have the troop strength to beat them. They'll massacre you, take over this city, and the revolution will begin. I'm going to help you stop that."

The commander was shocked, and thinking over what he was going to do about it. "What are you going to do about that?"

"I'm going to stop it. I will hold this city."

"With what army? How many men do you have?"

"I have as many men as there are people in this city. If you agree to my terms, of course."

"What are they?" The commander was now interested in this proposition.

"To annex this city. Bring it into Orange Star, and treat these people as full citizens."

"You can't be serious!" the commander protested. "I don't have the authority to do that in any case..."

"Make the call," Olaf said coldly, and picked up the phone on his desk. "What's the number for the President of Orange Star?"

"This is madness."

"It's exactly what you're here to do, commander. That's the mission plan, isn't it? Assimilate Blue Moon, turn Orange Star into the greatest superpower the world has ever known?" Olaf said loudly, so that the soldier's outside the room could hear.

"Isn't that what you're here for? That's the purpose of the old Blue Moon militia, that's the purpose of these ghettos, isn't it? So why not do it, commander? Assmilate the entire country without bloodshed."

The commander just sat there, staring at Olaf.

"If the mission isn't enough for you, what about yourself? When this is all over, would you rather be remembered, as a dead commander that got killed out of his own stupidity from the beginning of the Blue Moon Revolution? Or would you like to go back home as a hero. The man who held off the insurgency single-handedly, and finished the entire war with one fell swoop."

The commander was in deep thought. Olaf had gotten through to him.

"Be that man. Be the one that finished this war. You know well as I do that we don't need any more of this killing."

"Give me the phone."

---------

The town was awoken early that morning, not by the usual drone of the soldiers telling them to get to work, but by a new voice. Or rather, an old one, one that they hadn't heard in nearly a year.

It was only minutes before the dreary eyed citizens came out of their apartments and flowed into the town square. In the center of it all was Olaf, holding the megaphone.

"Wake up, citizens. The Orange Star Army has an announcement."

The square was filling with people now, people from across the city. they looked at him, intently, waiting to know the news that this old face had brought them. Olaf looked out into the crowd, and saw his father, with a tear in his eye. Olaf waved at him, trying to hold back his own emotions.

"Former citizens of Blue Moon, I have come to make this announcement to you. For two years we have seen this war unfold, we have seen our brothers die in defense of our nation, and our sons stripped away from us to die for that same cause. We have seen the transformation of this country by war. We have all sacrficed everything, and waited, waited too long for this war to end. But I say to you, my brothers, my sisters, it was not for nothing.

"I have come back from the battlefield that I was sent to conquer, returned from the horrors that we have prayed we would never have to face, and now I am here again, here to put up that one last fight.

"On the other side of these hills that surround us, lies a new threat. It is not Yellow Comet, nor is it Orange Star. It is not the threats that we know all too well. They will come here soon, and they will say that they are liberators. They are the Blue Moon Revolutionary Army, led by my brothers in arms.

The people began talking amongst themselves.

"But," Olaf said, his voice louder than ever. "These are lies. They have not come to liberate us, but to throw us back into war once again. They will tell you that they fight for freedom. They will tell you that these soldiers of Orange Star are tyrants, that these are our enemies that we must rise to defeat."

"Down with Orange Star!" a man in the crowd shouted. The people began shouting, and were thrown by that single statement into a revolutionary zeal that Olaf had hoped to avoid.

"Wait! Wait!" Olaf shouted. "These people are wrong. The revolutionary army does not serve you. It serves it's own interests, and if they succeed, we will all lose! Orange Star has done it's evil deeds, but we cannot counter this with more war. If we rise up, what will happen?"

The mob quieted down a little. No one had an answer.

"What will happen to all of us if we fight back? Is it better to die holding on to a hopeless dream, or to continue living, to keep working towards that dream?

"Some may say that we may not obtain that dream of freedom while under Orange Star. I say, if we do not work for that dream under Orange Star, we will inever/i obtain that dream! You may say to yourselves that dying for your country is honourable, but I say it is cowardice. To die when you can continue fighting as a living man is not heroic, it is the opposite. He who can so easily sacrifice himself when there is still a battle to finish is not worthy of such a title as hero! He is not worthy to be described as a man of honor, for he lacks the courage to suffer and fight. This is not the man I will become. This is not the kind of men you should become either!"

He had taken back the mob. They were listening intently again, under his control again.

"When these so called revolutionaries go into battle, they are ready to die. They are not ready to put up the struggle that is needed to win us our freedom! So I ask of all of you, every last one of you, to fight with me! Fight for our freedom in life, not for our freedom in death! No one will stop us from obtaining our freedom! Not the revolutionaries, not Yellow Comet, not even Orange Star! Our future is in our hands, not theirs!"

One by one, the crowd began to clap, to cheer. Olaf knew that they were not just cheering for him, but cheering for Blue Moon. It was today that he would remember for the rest of his life as the day they would earn back their freedom.

"Who here is ready to fight for their freedom?"

Hands shot up out of the crowd.

"Then go back to your homes. Get shovels. We're going to put up the biggest fight of our lives."

----------

"Shovels?" The commander asked, clearly puzzled.

"We aren't going to win this battle with raw firepower, sir. The only way to win is to limit their mobility and maximize our own," Olaf responded.

"And shovels are going to do that?"

"Vlad and his revolutionaries are going to capitalize on Orange Star's key weakness, and that's their lack of mobility. What we're going to need to do is to maximize it. There's snow coming later today. I can feel it. We need to take advantage of it." Olaf thought to himself for a moment. "Do we have any snowplows here?"

"Just the normal civilian ones."

"We need to weld some onto our recons, then."

"We need those for combat."

"The combat isn't going to be done with recons. The terrain is all wrong for that. They'll be slow and indecisive. What we need to do is to prevent his troops from moving around quickly. So we plow the snow into his path, then ambush him when he tries to move around."

"Do they have their own heavy vehicles?"

Reidar stood up. "Yes, they have their own tanks, stolen from Orange Star in their first few battles. They'll have just as much firepower as we do."

"The snow will slow them down. When they try to get through these massive snowbanks, they'll be wasting fuel. If we can take out their supply lines, their heavy units will be stranded."

The commander clasped his hands together. "It looks like we have a plan now. We had better hope this works, boys."

"Is our deal still on, commander?" Olaf asked.

"The Commander in-Chief has approved of it. So long as we win this battle, your people will have citizenship."

Olaf nodded, and stepped to the door.

"I'll go get tell the people the plans," Olaf said as he opened the door, but he was stopped by the commander's voice.

"Olaf, if this all works out, I'd be obliged to offer you and Reidar a position in the army."

Olaf paused, and looked down to the floor. "I can't keep fighting, sir."

"I think you underestimate yourself, soldier. You've shown an advanced understanding of this battlefield, one that I never would have figured out myself. I'm not just offering you a job as a soldier. I'm offering you a position as an officer."

Olaf looked back at him. "An officer in the Orange Star Army?"

"You've done smarter things than most people that I've offered the position to. With proper training, you would become a fine commander."

"I'd be honored, sir," Olaf stepped out the door again.

"Good luck, officer."


	6. Chapter 6: The Matrow Flank

**Chapter VI: The Matrow Flank**

Olaf raised his arm over his head to block the dirt flying into his face as the treads of the tanks tore up the earth below him. He called out to his superior, Commander Willheim.

"Sir! We have to move these the tanks closer together! We need to make a full offensive here, and that means concentration."

"We can't do that! Guerilla forces want to have us in the best containable spot so they can fire on the mass and destroy as many as possible!" Willheim shouted back.

"No, sir! These aren't fully trained guerilla fighters. They came up as militia that were meant to die. Most of the people that are still around haven't been in a battle. If they break ranks, we can destroy them quickly!"

The commander just shook his head, and spoke something unintelligible into his radio. Olaf could hear a response, but the words were muffled by static.

"Blue forces straight ahead! Fox Division move off!"

Olaf dropped himself down into the tank and grabbed the radio, and relayed the orders to every man in his division. "Turn left, go straight from there. Pull together, concentrate."

"Reb forces spotted, forward five."

"Forward five engage." Olaf said into his radio.

He heard the shot of the cannon not too far away. He could tell that they were decelerating now, and the shooter got into aiming position. Olaf grabbed a helmet, strapped it on, and pulled himself quickly out of the hatch. He got himself into shooting position and got his hand on the trigger, eye on the sight. With his other hand, he grabbed the radio.

"Full engage."

His tank continued to move across the plains, and he could see the first enemy of the battle, moving into firing zone, carrying a rocket launcher. Olaf pulled the trigger as they flew by the enemy who was subsequently torn apart. The rocket launcher fired into the ground.

Faster than he could blink, flames were rolling across the skies. A tank just behind his own was hit, exploding in flames. He looked quickly across the battlefield, analyzing the situation, while continuing to fire. The rockets continued to shoot, from the forests just ahead of them.

"Hind four move back, forward seven to the left. Center, hold. All fire high."

The hatch of Olaf's tank moved around him, firing it's cannon into the back of the woods. The rockets were coming at a slower frequency.

"Press forward, fire straight."

Olaf held his trigger hand still, and looked into the woods carefully. He could slowly begin to see the rebel army, who were loading rockets. He continued to hold his fire.

"All stagger. Now."

His own tank kept moving straight, while the others turned in various fashion, moving apart.

"Fire straight."

Simultaneously, all of his tanks fired cannons into the woods. The edge of the forest bursted into flames, exposing the front lines of the rebel army.

"Fire at will."

Olaf began to rapidly fire his machine gun, mowing down the burning trees, then killing the people infront of him. Most enemies in the front began to flee, and we shot down. Those who didn't were also killed. Olaf looked into the forest beside him, and noticed no more enemy soldiers.

"Slow drive, fire high. Report," Olaf said into the radio, calmly. The platoon leaders called in one by one with one word, "Clear."

"Halt fire, break," The tanks finally slowed to a full stop, but kept their cannons trained on the woods, gunmen with their trigger fingers ready.

He spoke into the radio again, "Hawke division, report."

He sat there, impatient and anxious. The radios were silent for what seemed like hours, but in reality was only a minute.

"Clear."

Olaf put his head down on the edge of the tank hatch. He could hear his soldiers around him cheering. Overcome by the emotion of the moment, he pulled himself on the top of the tank, and raised his fist in victory.

------------

The fighting for today had been finished, but the battle would continue for the night. After parking their tanks in the nearest temporary base, Olaf had to continue with the rest of the officers to do report on the casualties.

It was not Olaf's first battle by any means. He had thought that, as he continued fighting, the sickening feeling of seeing death would get smaller and smaller. Smaller until it was gone completely.

As he ventured across the old battlefield, he knew that he had been responsible for their deaths. Each mistake he made in his tactics was another life. He looked over their mangled bodies, grabbing their insignia from off their uniforms. The charred remains of his subordinates were then put into body bags. Sent back home.

It was true, what he had thought. The sight of a dead man absolutely disgusted him when he first came into the war. He couldn't stand to see the gruesome scenes of soldiers being torn apart by machine gun fire, burned by the incendiaries of rockets, made unrecognizable by the bullets and shrapnel that cut their faces. Now, he looked at it and he saw it as so much less. It was just a body. A body he knew had a name on it.

These thoughts were not helped by the fact that they had once been what he considered to be the enemy. Furthermore, he knew that the same respect had not been paid to his old comrades. He knew that had he, or Vlad, or even Alec, died in the battlefield, they would be left to rot. His family never would have known. And he knew that for most of his countrymen, that would be true.

The families of those people would never know, even after this war was over, what had happened to their sons. They would always sit there, wondering if maybe they had escaped. That maybe they were okay. They would never know for sure that they had died, never able to close that chapter in their life.

Olaf noticed, as he was having these thoughts, that he had tears in his eyes. He couldn't even see the checklist of soldiers. He rubbed his eyes clean and continued on.

"Olaf, hold yourself together now." Commander Willheim said as he walked past Olaf. "Soldiers don't cry."

The words stung him, but he knew it was true. If he was to be a leader of men, he would have to let emotions like that take a back seat. He couldn't let the death and destruction get to him. This wasn't something he could back away from anymore. He had made his commitment to his people. Until he had finished what he set out to do, this would be his job. The job of war.

So he continued to walk amongst the mangled corpses, pulling off insignia and checking names off the list. It was going to be a long job tonight.

---------

After finishing the post-battle survey, Olaf went into the war room along with Willheim, and dozens of other commanders that he had never seen before. He had not been briefed on what this meeting was for, but he assumed it had something to do with a large offensive. Many of the generals were equals with Willheim, as well as some superiors.

"Okay, let's begin the meeting," The highest ranking man in the room said. His garb was entirely black except for the golden buttons, and he wore sunglasses. He sat down on the far end of the long table, and everyone else sat down as well. Willheim showed Olaf to his seat, opposite that of the general.

"The President has informed me that the people are growing weary of the war in Blue Moon. They want to see us go on the offensive in Yellow Comet. Which is why we're here," The commander took off his glasses, revealing his two dark grey eyes. "...and I understand you have the best intelligence on this guy," he looked straight across the table at Olaf, and everyone else quickly averted their eyes to him.

"The rebel troops are the remaining fragments of the old Blue Moon militia, set up by our military almost a year ago. The other fragments would be my own Blue Moon troops, which now make up the 42nd Division," Olaf took a breath, and tried to hide his nervousness. "Their leader is Vladimir Ishonakov, my former peer."

Some of the commanders clearly had not been briefed on this, and could be heard whispering to eachother. Olaf felt relieved at the chance for him to pause and collect his thought.

"Okay everyone, quiet. Olaf, what do you know about his specific abilities? Do you have any ideas as for what he's going to be going after with this rebellion, besides what we already know?"

"I know that he is an experienced writer, he was always an excellent rhetorician. I believe that he's going to use these skills to his advantage, and that's going to be to get a message of dissent out into the public eye. Recruit a larger rebellion of townspeople, train them in the same way. A second method of attack for him might be to go directly to the Orange Star people."

"That wouldn't work," one of the commanders remarked.

"I wouldn't rule it out," the general said solemnly.

"Yeah, because our people are real gullible fools," another one said in a sardonic tone.

"Yeah, they are, for listening to that dumbass at the top, listening to his justification for this war!" the commander to the left of Olaf shouted. The room exploded.

"Everyone, quiet! Are you real men or just a bunch of whining girls? We're trying to come up with a good plan of action here, and it doesn't matter how effective theirs is. What we know is what Ishonakov will want to do, and that's where we have to pay attention to," Willheim yelled above the cacophony that had filled the room.

"Is there anyone you know of with expertise in the area of radio broadcasting inside the insurgency?" the general was growing impatient with the others.

"I don't know... I think one of them might be smart enough to do it. He should still be with them,"

"Pull up a map. We have to find every radio station that they might have access to."

One of the commanders left his seat and walked to the side of the room, and rummaged through the cabinets.

"Their last offensive was at the Matrow River, still going on. When we push them back from there, we're going to stay on them."

The commander that left before came back with a map, and rolled it across the table. Everyone stood up and looked over the map, and looked intently to find the best location for the next attack.

"I can see three locations where they might be trying to go. If we make the assumption that their attacks are calculated in any way, I think this one is the best... See where the Matrow River dips down? Radio tower nestled right in there, between some mountains. They're making this offensive to draw us off their real plan which lies to the west," Olaf said. He was met with a mixed sense of both amazement and contempt from the commanders.

"Which means we have to move in and flush them out of there. Ishonakov will be there very soon, and it won't take him long to get the tower up and running. If he gets his message out, the people of Blue Moon may rise up. You might have a civil war on your hands."

The general nodded and smiled. "What we need to do is clear. We have to intercept them through two paths. On the Matrow River, they're going to attack that radio tower. What we need to do is attack their flank as they're coming in, and then move in to destroy the radio transmitter," He paused for a moment and searched over the map. "They're going to send in another group from the north," the general's demeanor changed with his last statement. He was growing to realize that this was a problem.

"That other group will try to transmit the message too. They're going to be mobile and well-protected," Olaf said, his voice unconfident and trailing at the end.

"We'll figure something out. You're all dismissed. Except Willheim. And Olaf."

All of the commanders left the room in orderly fashion, in full silence. As the last one left and shut the door, the general spoke.

"Olaf, you're going to need to perform a different mission. I can tell right now that these attacks alone won't do it. There's too much that can go wrong here. We need you to deal with Ishonakov directly."

--------

Vlad spun around in his chair, making two rotations, then pulled himself to his desk, and looked intently at a blank peice of paper.

As he stared at it, he marveled at the idea of it. At what this essay, a declaration that did not exist in the real world yet, would mean to the world. He knew that with the stroke of the pen, he would be writing history. That these words would go down in history as the basis for his country. These would be the words of Blue Moon.

He leaned back in the chair and thought about what had happened. How had he arrived, from just a year ago, writing an essay to be accepted into a university, to being the centerpeice of revolution? It was conceivable to him then that he would be a statesmen. But never had it occured to him that he very well might become the leader of the new, free world.

The ink of his pen flowed across the pages after several minutes of his contemplating the impact of this document, him drawing out the basis for the rights of his fellow men, in all countries. He wrote of the offenses that had been committed, the unjustified, criminal war that had begun this spiral of destruction, the assassination of the Czar, the murdering of Blue Moon's sons, the raping of her daughters. He wrote vigorously, with an imaginary anthem of rebellion ringing in his head, the words on the paper dancing to the rhythms.

Before long, he had written nearly twenty pages, outlining the justifications for his war, the means by which they would pursue the creation of the Blue Moon nation, and the ends for which this new state would serve.

The conclusion of his work was almost complete, before he was interrupted by a rapping on his door. He finished his sentence, and set the pen down.

"What is it?" he asked the silence that followed the vigorous pounding.

His room sat still, and he waited, his eyes still intently focused on the door. The sudden silence was perplexing, haunting him. As the confusion over this event overtook the revolutionary rigor that his mind had been filled with only seconds before, he felt a sense of horror coming on to him. It was undefinable. The room, which had once seemed so bright and hopeful, was now dim and dread set in. He glanced away from the door to the gun which lay on the desk, next to his pen. He looked back at the door again, now paralyzed by the paranoia.

Another knock hit the door, and Vlad, without thought, grabbed the gun and pointed it straight at the door. He reached his hand onto the back and cocked it, training it on the heart of the invisible person who stood on the other side of the doorway.

It opened slowly, and a girl appeared across the room, her face freightened. The door, as if pulled by God himself, swung all the way open, revealing her completely.

Vlad kept his gun trained on her, aimed straight into her heart. She stared down the barrel of the gun, and said, in a pristine and quiet voice, "I came to get the laundry."

Vlad lowered the gun to his side. "It's over there," He pointed towards the hamper.

The girl walked over to the hamper and picked it up. Vlad noticed, as she walked, he beauty. Her long, black hair, fair skin. And he had pointed a gun at her. He mentally scolded himself for his foolish paranoia, and spoke to her.

"Sorry I scared you like that," he said, in his most sincere and polite voice.

The girl nodded and headed out the door. She looked back at him, and asked, "You're Vladimir Ishonakov?"

"Yes."

She smiled. "I'm sorry for interrupting you, sir," with this, she continued to walk out, but was stopped.

"And you are?"

"St... Alice," she said quickly, and walked out.

Vlad was puzzled by the way she said it, and even more so by the name itself. He didn't think too much on it at the time, and instead made an assumption. "Must be a northerner," he muttered to himself.

He set the gun down on the table, and spun his chair back into place, picking up the pen. He closed his eyes and waited for the anthem to stream into his head once more. In a few strokes, it was finished.

--------

In the morning, Vlad awoke refreshed and ready to begin the next stage of his war plan. He had started the skirmishes, the troops were all in position. It was time for him to make the next move, the move into the greater conflict.

He had made plans, for the past few months, to make bomb small targets, to make coordinated attacks on the Orange Star army. This was a neccessary step, in that it gave his commanders a chance to pratice. He had chosen them all of their potential to be great leaders, but he knew the truth: they were not trained to be generals.

Not yet anyway. As they began to learn more about strategy and tactics, they became more and more successful. It seemed, except for rare occassions, that the Orange Star army couldn't adapt. His army was doing it every day, and that was their source of victory.

But he knew that he couldn't keep this up forever. In order to win a conflict, not just forestall Orange Star's absolute victory, his army would need to become a true army. Right now it was a militia group using terrorist tactics to surprise the enemy. He would need to use what he had now to go into head-on battles with Orange Star. To develop his own weapons on par with theirs, to rebuild the country of Blue Moon as a capable nation, a nation to rival that of Orange Star. Only when they were fighting on the same level as Orange Star would they be treated as a country, rather than an insurgency group.

And that was what this plan would do. To send a message to everyone that Blue Moon had declared independence, to declare that he was the President of this new nation. To gain legitimacy in the eyes of the people who were important: the people, of both countries. Which the people's recognition of him as a leader of men, the political power would be forced to recognize him as well. And soon as that happened, he would have everything needed to drive the invaders out of his country.

He danced across his room to the anthem of Blue Moon again, stroking his hand across the desk, and ending it at the edge. With a whisk of his arm, he picked up the bottle on his table, and twisted it open.

His energy somewhat disipated now, he sat in his chair, and looked down at his leg. He ran his finger along the scar on his knee. At first, he felt nothing, then ran his finger through it again, with greater pressure. He still felt nothing. Finally, he pointed his nail in such a way that it sliced against the skin on his leg, and felt the searing pain. His leg thrashed about in reaction, but he steadied it. His body shook with a mixture of fear and pain, and he twisted the bottle cap, releasing the pills into his hand.

The pills would solve the problem. He wouldn't feel pain anymore, not with the pills. He looked down at his palm, and stared at the little white capsules. He traces his eyes across the small divider. He was supposed to cut them in half and take one half a pill. But, just like the pills his mother used to give him, they wouldn't do anything at all.

He shook the bottle again, and shook two more pills into his hand, making for a total of four. He looked again at them, and smiled. Tilting his head back, he popped them straight into his mouth, and swallowed. The bad taste of the residue came off on his tounge, and he shook his head in repulsion. But as they trailed down his esophogus, he felt better. The pain in his leg disappeared. His mind became clear. He pulled open the curtains, and he looked into the sky. The sun, with a great smile on it's face, rose into view, and the clouds that had defined the previous night sky rolled away.

This surreal representation of reality vanished in an instant as he again heard someone knocking on his door. He immediately turned around, stood upright, and turned the knob to see Alice again.

"I brought your clothes back, Vladimir," she said with a smile on her face.

Vlad eyed her wearily. Alice again? One girl had come to his door twice in a row. He figured that it had been ordered, somewhere along the line, that there would be certain security precautions taken.

But, his suspicion of Alice faded into anger at whoever was organizing these things. It was stupid, how the security of a man that was going to change history in a few days, had such horrible security.

"Thank you," He finally said after a few minutes of just staring at her. "Wait here, I have a job for you."

Alice stood still at the doorway as Vlad loped back to his desk, and wrote a small note on a peice of paper. He folded it several times and handed it to her.

"Don't read it, just deliver it to the main office. It's upstairs."

Alice took the note and walked out the door, closing it behind her. Ignoring the orders given to her by Vlad, she unfolded the note very delicately and read.

"This girl has been here twice in a row. Why aren't you alternating? And how long haven't you been doing it? After we execute the plan, we're burning this."

Alice refolded it after reading and thought to herself what this meant. She knew what the plan meant, that was obvious. But did this mean that he suspected her? Or did it mean that he was just noticing the security flaw and making sure that he was in no danger?

But, as she walked down the hallways, she made no sign of any concern on her face. As military men and nurses alike marched about through the halls, suspecting everyone, she made well sure that she appeared as the rest of them did.

After making several flexures, she arrived at the other office. the windows were smashed out, matching nicely with the derelict appearance of the entire building. She made a knock on the largest triangle of broken glass, and accidently broke that peice off with her fist.

The head of security rolled his eyes and opened the door.

"What do you want?" He half-yelled at her, his impatience with people clearly showing.

"Mr. Ishonakov told me to give this to you." She passed him the folded note, and walked away. She could hear him making absurdly audible mumbling sounds, something along the line of, "stupid bitch", but she did not let this get to her. She just kept walking down the hall and wondering what was going to happen next.

Two possibilities: She was either compromised, or uncompromised. The Orange Star military had not briefed her very well on this mission, it was such a spur of the moment, mercurial operation that they had not had enough time to tell her what to do in a situation like this.

If she was compromised, what should she do? Her first instinct was to contact her commanders, but would that be the best idea?

No. She hadn't been compromised. Not yet, anyway. The rebels might suspect something, but she hadn't given anything away. If she played her cards right, if she made them believe that she was nothing more than a foolish, naive servant girl, they would not know about her mission.

Still, the idea that they might be onto her made her panic. She needed to contact someone, someone to make sure that this wouldn't end badly. She could make a contact in secret, and this would be the ideal time. Afterall, she had found out that Ishonakov had a room. An unchanging room.

She pulled into one of the many uninhabited rooms within the complex, and turned on her small radio. She turned down the volume so that her static could not be heard outside.

"This is Alice. Requesting WK. Over."

She waited a few moments, listening intently to the faint noise on her radio.

"WK in. Go. Over." she heard the voice of her commander once again. His voice comforted her amidst the great peril of her operation.

"RQ is in 5A. No switches have been seen. SD Two. Over."

"Security sitch? Over."

"Suspect but not compromised. Over."

Alice listened to him breathing heavily on the other line. She waited for him to respond to this plea.

"Fifteen hours. Over."

-----

Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. Vlad realized what a joke his current crew of people was. His security minister couldn't be relied on for anything. All of his work had amounted to nothing. It was, yet again, only when he took matters into his own hands that things were accomplished. He would have to micromanage the entire war.

He had listened in on Alice's conversation with whoever it was she was working for. Not only had his security minister failed to protect his position, but he had failed to pursue the the problem afterwards.

Vlad knew he couldn't focus much of his attentions on the incompetence of the men around him. He had to focus on the matter ahead of him. There was an assassination plot on his hands, and he would need to solve it quickly.

The door flew open straight into his face as he was contemplating his plan of action. He fell backwards, his mind moving slow from the sudden shock.

"Stop her!" he shouted as he saw Alice running down the hall from the corner of his eye.

Two guards caught both of her arms as she was running, almost seeming to tear her apart. The force of this blockage sent her backwards onto the floor. Vlad, with his head recovering from the blow, stood up and walked over to her.

"What is your name?" he asked her, standing over her head menacingly.

Her throat held the truth from escaping her mouth, and she spoke. "Alice."

Vlad rolled his eyes, and then kicked her in the head. Her body spasmed in pain.

"Tell the truth."

This time her mouth was shut. She wasn't going to give anymore useful information here. She was ready to die now. No smart person, believing in their mission, would give information if they anticipated their death.

But this wasn't going to stop Vlad. He wouldn't kill her. He needed to know everything about this attempt on his life. So he just stood there, and waited. He looked at the top of her head, and could see a small pool of blood collecting on the floor.

"Alice," he said in a more comforting voice, but still firm and loud. She had no reaction.

"Is she dead?" one of the guards asked.

"No, just unconscious. Get her up, get a nurse to tend to her wound. We won't let this one get away."

The guards carried her out of the hallway and into a new room, a nearby nurse following. Once they had left, they revealed the security minister, who stood there, with a sense of shock on his face.

"Were you pursuing her?" Vlad asked.

The security minsiter nodded.

"And you failed to do it before she compromised our position," Vlad said coldly. "Ladies and gentleman!" He yelled across the entire complex in an exaggerated optimistic tone. "See the price of incompetence!"

The security minsiter did nothing. Vlad pulled his pistol out very quickly and shot him in the head. Bone fragments and brains fell over the person standing behind him, and he fell straight to the floor.

Vlad pocketed his pistol and walked over the corpse nonchalantly, and said, without stopping, "Someone better clean that up before noon."

-------

Alice awoke in a small white bed, with a thin blue sheet covering her. Her body ached all over, her arms felt as if they had been detatched from the rest of her body, and her head throbbed with pain as she came into full awareness. She tried to move her arm to feel her head, but she didn't have the strength to do it.

She was immobile. Useless. And her enemy knew it. They were going to keep her alive until she told them what they wanted to know. She predicted that within any moment, someone would come into the room to interrogate her.

But it wouldn't work. She had been interrogated before. She knew what to expect, and figured that it would be just as easy to get out of as it was before.

Then again, she hadn't done it alone. She got lucky.

"Awake yet?" A menacing voice called from behind her. She tried to turn her head, but was assaulted by a small collar around her neck. The metal scraped a layer skin straight off her, she cried out in pain.

"What is your name?"

"Alice."

She waited a few moments to find out what would be done to her. Suddenly, a jolt of ightning went through her body, her mind broken and distorted from it. She tried to regain her full mind, but he asked too quickly.

"Who is WK?" The voice shouted at her.

She shook her head, and the shock went through her again.

"Who is RQ?"

Alice used whatever energy was left in her body to push herself out of the bed's grasp, but the collar held her back again, choking her as she tried to escape. This was immediately followed by another shock.

"What is your name?" the voice asked again.

After saying nothing, Alice couldn't breathe. She tried to gasp , but the air wouldn't come into her.

"Who is WK?"

The room became darker. The words the voice spoke were flying away from her, she tried to grasp what he was saying, but she couldn't.

A click was heard and the oxygen came flowing back into her. She regained consciousness, but hadn't full recovered from her suffocation.

"Who is RQ?"

"Ish... ish..."

"Ishonakov." the voice answered.

Alice could only nod to him.

"What is your mission?"

She shook her head again, and was punished with another shock.

"What is it?"

This time, the voice was more patient. As she recovered her mind, she felt no punishments for at least a minute.

"To kill him. Ishonakov," she said finally. Her will to fight had been diminished. She didn't have the energy to evade him any longer.

The source of the voice stepped into her view finally, revealing Vladimir Ishonakov himself. She stared into his eyes, and saw the black fires burning in his dark eyes. The highlight of white in his eyes was a window into his soul, and it seemed broken. Distorted. Alice knew she was looking into the eyes of a madman.

"Who do you fight for?"

Alice kept looking into him, ignoring the question. He stepped forward, moving behind her again, but she stopped him before he could make another action.

"I fight for Blue Moon."

He stepped back infront of her, and looked over her indifferenly for a few seconds, then asked his next question.

"Who is WK?"

"Olaf Thorsen."

--------

"You know what I have to do, commander. I need the equipment to do it. We have Ishonakov in the right position, I know it."

Willheim shook his head. "We don't have the time, Olaf. We need to move artillery into the right position and take him out, that's it."

"Orange Star still has a spy in there, commander. We have to save her," Olaf protested.

"Wake up, soldier! I heard the radio transmission. Alice was compromised. She hasn't made contact for three days now," Willheim shouted.

"I can't let her die."

Willheim put his hand on Olaf's shoulder, and brought him aside. He lowered his voice. "She is dead, Olaf. Accept it. We can't let this get in the way of the mission."

Olaf swung his arm violently to detatch Willheim from him. But Willheim was stronger than he was, and his stubborn arm would not move. Olaf was put in his place. He was a child to these people, nothing more.

"It's unfortunate, Olaf, but we have a clear shot here. Vlad is in the exact position we need him in. We're taking him out and that's that."

Willheim removed his hand from Olaf's shoulder and started towards the door.

"Just stay here and wait for the general to give you your next orders," he left Olaf alone in the office, and closed the door shut.

Olaf couldn't accept what he had said though. He wouldn't let her die. He had made a pledge when she started the mission to protect her life, whatever the costs to his own well-being. He would do something. Something to save her.

He looked out the window, thinking about what he could do. He had no permission to grab any vehicles to get in there intime. He had no permission to do anything, period. Stuck here, until he recieved orders.

But Olaf was not the man to take orders. He didn't accept that this was how it was going to be. If he was to serve Orange Star, maybe his loyalty to their cause might be more important than her life. But he had pledged not to protect and serve Orange Star. He had made his pledge, from the very beginning, to fight for his country. To fight for Blue Moon. Even if it would no longer exist as a state, his nation still lived on in the hearts of millions of people. He wouldn't, couldn't turn his back on his native land.

There was a temporary airfield nearby, and Olaf suddenly had a plan. He had orders not to go after Ishonakov personally, but that was the army. The airforce had given him no such orders. With these past few months of observation, Olaf knew one thing: Orange Star military was fractured. The commanders had contact with the other branches, but they had seperate hierarchies. An order from one branch would not neccessarily hold in another.

The plan was set into action within a few moments of Olaf thinking about it. He would have to get a helicopter, and drop himself into their territory. It was extremely risky. He knew that they would have their weapons of all sorts. They would be able to shoot him out of the sky very easily. But he knew one important fact: they wouldn't have time, because they were facing another threat.

He quickly picked up the pen on Willheim's desk and wrote a note, imitating the commander's handwriting, a note that ordered a transport copter be given to Olaf. It was a grave risk he was taking, forging his superior's signature, but this mission meant more to him than that.

Olaf tore the note off of the rest of the paper and ran as fast as he could through the base. The artillery bombardment would begin in two hours. It would take him at least an hour to arrive in the complex, and at least another to find Vlad.

His mad dash out of the base was stopped abruptly by a hand reaching out and slamming into his nose. Olaf reeled from the sudden assault, and he stopped to find out who it was.

Reidar was standing beside him, with a small troop of soldiers near him. Five of them.

"Where are you going in such a hurry?"

Olaf shook his head. "No time to explain. Just follow me."

Reidar gave a nod to his soldiers, and they nodded immediately after. All seven of them continued to run out of the base, and out into the dirt road. This road ended with a wide dirt clearing where fifteen helicopters stood above them.

"We need heavy equipment. Rocket Launchers, Miniguns," Olaf said, not averting his gaze on the banana shaped copter.

The five soldiers went back into the base to get their equipment from the armory. Reidar stayed with Olaf, and inquired into the details of the mission.

"What kind of mission is this?"

"Assassination. We're going to take out Vlad," Olaf said, a tinge of sadness in his words.

"The artillery is supposed to do that."

"I don't care."

Reidar kicked the dirt at his feet.

"Going against command is grounds for discharge."

"In this case," Olaf paused for a moment, trying to to maintain a normal inflection. "Going with the command will cause death."

"It's a war, Olaf. Of course there's death."

Olaf shoved his foot into the earth, mimicing Reidar. "But it's worth stopping more than is neccessary, Reidar. We don't have to kill all those people," he turned to Reidar, and lifted his hand, with his index finger erect. "Just one."

------

Vlad had realized in due time that Alice had triggered something. Sentries had spotted artillery, and it seemed that there was going to be a battle for the base within a few minutes. Everyone in the base was frantically running around, transporting the wounded soldiers into the basements, well soldiers grabbing guns and preparing for a fight.

It didn't matter, really. The base was fortified better than those fools at Orange Star would have predicted. Below them was ten yards of solid concrete, supported by premium alloy steel beams. Their pathetic artillery might blow up the flimsy above ground portions, but Vlad knew he would survive.

They knew nothing about this land. The czars, prior to being captured by SIB Agents, had built huge underground tunnels. Blue Moon had been ingenious in it's defensive planning, it was simply too slow.

But Vlad wasn't. He was very quick to realize that these underground bunkers had been prepared, and equally quick to realize that he would have to use them. During every reconnaissance mission, they turned up no signs that Orange Star even knew about the place.

And, below that bunker, he would make another example of the people who decided to be traitors to his cause. Alice, that stupid little girl, would pay for what she had done. Not simply as retribution, but to set an example. The revolutionaries certainly thought that everything was about freedom. Few of them, especially those that weren't in the militia, knew the type of violence and oppression they were up against. It was Vlad's duty, as the Commander in-Chief, to show them his authority.

Which was why he had to publicly execute Alice. He knew she meant barely anything to his plans. All this meant was that a useless base was going to be blown up, and still had miles of underground networking, and miles more would be built over the next few years. But this was his chance to force the revolution under his authority. To become the absolute commander. After this display, none would question his rule.

Alice's bed was wheeled down the ramps, and Vlad made sure to follow her. It was perfectly possible, given that this girl was not an Orange Star trained operative, that there were more turncoats in the base. They would be purged later, but they might try to save her from the responsibility of her treasonous crimes.

"Sir! Sir!" a young man's voice was coming from up the stairs.

Vlad flipped around and looked at the soldier, who had his hand pointing straight up.

"What--" Vlad's question was cut off by a faint whistle. The entire building shook, and lights began to flicker. Vlad didn't need to be told. There was a second attack by the air, and Vlad had no time to prepare for it.

"Everyone get down into the bunkers! Haste, damnit!"

He thought frantically about the positions of all of his soldiers, which he had memorized by heart. He knew exactly where each and every man was, and he tried to think of some kind of plan that would prevent the attack from defeating him. None of the chess peices were in the right place. This aerial attack, it seemed, had put him in check.

People continued to rush down the stairs, but he stopped himself and grabbed Alice from her bed, tearing her off whatever oxygen supplies they had given her. This was going to be a showdown, and he had a feeling that he knew who was coming.

Vlad signaled to the soldier at the top of the stairs, the one who had signaled the attack. He pulled him close.

"I need you to hold the fort. Return fire. Get anyone else you can to hold them at bay," the soldier nodded and ran back up the stairs.

Vlad moved his hand along Alice's back and propped up her head as he carried her down the flight of stairs. The crowd of surrounding people blurred into a multicolored stream, and his awareness was only of himself and Alice.

If only the girl had not been such a traitor. She was beautiful, and it would be a pity when he had to seperate that pretty face from her angelic body.

------

Olaf's helicopter circled around the large cement complex, soldiers firing their rockets into the windows. Only a few minutes after their bombardment began, the enemy began firing back. This was not an organized effort, however, and seemed put together completely on the fly. Vlad had not prepared for the aerial attack.

"We have to land. Now. This is going to be an inside operation.," Olaf shouted above the vociferous growl of the helicopter.

The soldiers, knowing what this meant, immediately began firing rockets directly at the soldiers which assaulted them. The pilot slowly dived in, landing beeline to the large "H" painted on the zenith of the building.

Immediately upon landing, the soldiers jumped out, including the pilot. Everyone was armed and ready. Olaf seemed the least prepared, wearing only light armor and carrying a pistol.

Olaf brought his arm around Reidar's head to make sure that they could speak without being heard by any spies.

"You take point, distract them. I'm going alone. Get to Vlad if you can, but I'm going to save her. Go," He released Reidar from his grip, and both nodded to eachother, and entered the building through the top hatch.

Immediately as they entered, gunfire filled Olaf's senses. Bodies hit the floor as the force of eight men collided with the rebel defenses. None of his men were lost, and he took great thankfulness that all of the casualties thus far had been at his enemy's expense.

A narrow corridor split at two points. Olaf could see that one had quite a bit of light, and ran down to teh dark one as the others ran into the lighted hallways. They would be moving towards the soldiers, he knew. This place was being evacuated, and the soldiers had no time to go through the obvious route, which would be the utility system.

The hallways became increasingly dark as he continued throughout the twisting corridor, eventually pipes coming down lower and lower until the entire place was filled with wiring and exposed pipeline. The sound of the water flowing through the pipes created an eerie presense in the room, enhancing his paranoia. A light on top of him went out, and he flipped around, aiming his gun behind him. There was nothing that he could see, so he flipped immediately forward, not about to get caught off guard by anyone hunting him.

Twisting passages eventually gave way to a steep drop, indeed, it was vertical. Olaf could not see in this darkness, the depth of this abyss, but he could hear the echoes beneath of people talking. He could hear faintly the sounds of feminine inflection. This had to be the way, there were civilians below.

He brought his pistol back to his belt, and prepared himself for a climb down. Cautiously bringing his foot down into the pit, he felt around for a pipe where he could support his weight. Everything seemed to be too slippery, but he eventually decided on his foothold. He slowly descended into the blackness, the already dark ceiling fading into invisibility behind him.

Condensation from the cold water running through the pipes and the warm surrounding air produced sweat, and Olaf's boots began to slip. His hands could perfectly grip the moistened pipes, but he found himself increasingly unable to trust that his next step would be held. It was too late to come up from here, and it was likely that he would fall soon. He simply hoped that he was not far from the floor.

On that train of thought, he decided that it would be best to drop himself. If he slipped from the wet pipes, he would probably fall backwards and hit his head on the back of the vertical tunnel. If he needed anything in this mission, it was a clear head. His physical abilities were more expendable than his mind.

Pivoting his body to the right, he reached out his leg to the other side of the pit, forming a triangle with his legs and an invisible line running the diagonal of the squared walls. Pointing his arms in a straight line upwards, he snapped his legs together and fell straight to the bottom.

A jolt came up at him from the floor, paralyzing his legs with intense pain. As he hit the floor, he made sure to bend them so that he could better absorb the impact. To his luck, the fall had not been for longer than a second, and the pain was only transient. No permanent damage had been done as far as he could tell.

Low ceiling marked this passage, but there was light. Through the grates he could see the scene of hundreds of people gathered in the underground bunkers. This is where Willheim had made a fatal mistake.

The type of munitions that were being used to bombard this place would never be able to penetrate this depth. Vlad had thought one step ahead of them, and created a security backup. The mission that Willheim had planned had failed.

But this analysis of the military situation was superceded in Olaf's mind by the impending danger of being seen. If he walked into the hall lined with grates, he would be seen, and the sound of him moving through would be reverberated throughout the vastness below him.

Gunshots were heard, almost as if on que by his mind, and the crowd turned towards the direction of the ensuing battle. Luckily for Olaf, this was in the opposite direction. He ducked his head down and arched his back slightly, sidling through the ventway.

He was almost across the entire grated area when he heard Vlad speaking below him. The gunshots had paused, and Vlad seemed ever confident that it was he who had victory. Olaf prayed that this was not the case, and slipped out of sight once again.

"Fighters for the resistance, I ask of all of you to stay confident in our endeavors. As these Orange Star dogs continue to attack and pursue us, they do so only in vein! For it is through the will of the Blue Moon people that we have our nation still, and it is with their will that we will expel these invaders which have plundered our lands!

"But, as much as we fight for our right to be free, there are others who fight to oppress us. Some, such as Orange Star, wish to do this rather directly. Others, like Yellow Comet, may wish to exploit us! But it takes a special kind of filth to come into our lives and destroy us through other means. It takes a special kind of degenerated person to betray the cause of their bretheren, to defy the will of her brothers and sisters!

"And despite the fact that we may find such an act of treason to be so far away from our own revolutionary causes, there are those who seem loyal not to their nation, but to the worst of all nations which is not their own. I speak of course, of the nation of Orange Star! And I speak of course, of this girl, who sits tied in this chair, on display for all to see her traitorous face!

"This girl, who calls herself, "Alice" may look to be sweet and innocent, but she has single-handedly perpetrated the worst crime imaginable: to betray her own people, to bring the death and destruction which looms outside this very room!"

Vlad stepped to the other side of Alice, and stared at her, with a look of dissappointment and disgust on his face.

"She has given away our position to the enemy. She has betrayed the trust of me and everyone else in this room through her actions. None I have seen is worse than this. None."

The two soldiers standing nearby untied Alice from her chair, and lifted her onto a nearby table, where her hands were again tied behind her back.

"I will give a chance now, for anyone in the audience to reveal themselves. A chance for anyone to come out and say that they have strayed from us. Those who come out right now will not be punished. Those who accept their guilt and do us no more harm will be forgiven. Come now, all spies, sympathizers, what have you. I will not judge those who do not pretend."

Several people in the audience raised their hands, and the crowd moved around them, as if they had suddenly become drops of oil in the water.

"Thank you. Please step to the side," Vlad ordered, and they all went to the left of Alice's table.

"Any more?"

------

Olaf crawled as fast as he could through the vents, his large frame disrupting his movement. The passage narrowed into another grate, He kicked it open and pushed himself into the next room.

He was only recovering from that fall when a door in that room opened, a soldier came in with a rifle. Olaf was quick to dispatch him, shooting him straight in the arm, disarming the rifle, and then running past the soldier, swinging his left arm to knock his opponent to the floor.

Blazing past the door and shooting rapidly, Olaf took out two more soldiers who came to defend against him. Adrenaline pulsed through his veins, and his senses were heightened. Unlike any time before in his life, his shots were hitting exactly where he needed them to.

Words flew through the air after the last body fell to the cold ground. He could barely tell what was being said, and after the sound of Vlad's voice stopped, he mouthed out the statement, the words coming out of his own mouth backwards. It felt as if the moment was stretching on for minutes, but it was only a fraction of a second before the words clicked.

Off with her head.

Olaf made a swift kick at the door infront of him and fired a shot without thinking. His subconscious had guided his gun to aim precisely at the point he needed. The executioner, who held a red axe above his head, was sent falling backwards.

Stasia layed on the table infront of the executioner, and the axe fell straight down onto her. It's silvery blade went straight into her, and all Olaf could see was that she was staring into the ceiling.

As more gunshots rained down on the crowd, the civilians fled in panic, stampeding through the doorways. Soon the only one left was Vlad, standing in the middle of a vast room, alone.

Olaf took a step forward, prompting Vlad to run to the back of the room. Olaf continued in pursuit, just as he saw Vlad pressing buttons on a huge machine in the background.

"You won't stop me, Olaf! You won't!" Vlad feverishly slammed his fingers against the various buttons, but his time has come. A single .22 bullet peirced his chest, and he fell beside the wall.

The motion of events sped up as Vlad's mangled figure molded to the black tiles which lined the ground. Olaf ran over to Vlad, past Stasia's table, and grabbed him in his arms.

"Olaf..." Vlad said, staring with child-like eyes into Olaf's own.

"Vlad... don't... don't worry. It's okay," Olaf said, holding his military coat to Vlad's chest wound.

"Olaf... don't let it die," Vlad said, tears accumulating in his eyes. His lips trembled as he hummed a tune. "Blue Moon... it will live... finish it. We won't... die..."

Olaf clutched Vlad's hand in his own, and his eyes blurred from the tears. "I won't Vlad. You won't die in vain. Blue Moon will live on. They won't forget you."

"Alek... him too?"

"Yes. Him too," Olaf took from his pocket a small knife. "Don't worry Vlad. You'll be out of pain soon. Just close your eyes," the knife went straight into Vlad's heart, and his eyes rolled back into his head. But with that, they closed, and soon his breathe faded from sudden bursts to a smooth, light wind until there was no more.

Olaf stood up, dragging his knife out of Vlad's corpse. He looked at his eyes once more, and said his final goodbye, silently mourning the loss of his own humanity as well as the demise of his old childhood friend. He turned away, and saw before him an angel. The white aura radiated from her, and Olaf looked into her eyes. Stasia.

He stepped forward into her arms, and she embraced him, bringing him down to the floor. His tears rolled down her white clothes, and she held his head at her breast.

"Did I do the right thing?" Olaf's words came out muffled.

Stasia made a simple hush and kissed his head. "You did what you had to do, Olaf," she said in a gentle voice. "For Blue Moon."


End file.
